I bought this Hitachi Atom Square 2Ton split AC and I have never have had such a horrible experience so far with any of my purchases and never even imagined a brand like Hitachi can cause such pain still enjoying consumer money. Before I go into more details, I give a BIG warning for anybody who considers buying things from Hitachi in India.
First I went to buy this only due to my earlier experiences with Hitachi as a brand using its VCR long back and after my international exposure doing business with Hitachi elsewhere (Singapore, Japan, etc). Also the design of this Atom Square AC attracted me so much so that I was bent on buying this when I already happily used other brands like Carreer (where there was other pain of service people trying to exploit charging more than normal for services though AC itself works fine).
I bought this machine on Jan and the sales guy at Madurai (Mr. Kingsly) promised everything under the earth on service before I were to send the cheque to Hitachi, Chennai. Then started my trouble, he sent in the name of Hitachi Authorized service a company (S.K. Electronics) for installing this machine, who seem to knew nothing about this particular model and experiement with me. Ever since it was installed, it gave problems again and again with no cooling which was detected as gas leak but the service technicians (anybody would say by the way they handle things that they are good for nothing!) repeated would promise things will be alright. For the fourthtime in Apr, they connected a Nytrogen gas cylinder to detect the leak but only to conclude that there is no specific leak and probably the dummy nuts at the joints would have let to some leak and assured that there will no leak after charging this time.
Again and again, the unit used to work only for a week, also with uncertain cooling efficiency (at no point of time anyone brought a thermometer to know if there is enough cooling though the installation sheet says to mention the cooling temp) and finally when I gave up chasing S.K. Electronics, then decided to escalate to Hitachi directly. All the while the Hitachi sales guy (Mr. Kingsly) was of obsolutely no use and it looks like they live in the luxury of Hitachi name (as I am fooled) doing no work for customer satisfaction.
When I escalated the problem to Hitachi in Apr, they sent some one from Hitachi Airmac, Madurai and they also proved useless as even after they serviced, the same problem of No efficient cooling, Water dripping from indoor unit, gas leaking that could not be detected, etc. all were still there after three of their visits. Fourth time with them when I called Hitachi Airmac services directly is when the story unfolded to bizzare propotion. The support lady there (one Ms. Aruan) told me that how many time she could send their technicians to Karaikudi from Madurai and when I told them that they better take back the system if they cannot complete an installation (as this is not even a service call and is a pain of installation for four months having spent about Rs. 65000), she told me that I should speak to Hitachi. Only then I realized that Hitachi Airmac is also an agent and not any part and parcel of Hitachi to own my case. Worse still, when I asked them if they use other brand AC in their home making money selling Hitachi AC that does not work to consumers in the market, very boldly she acknowledged 'YES'.
A week ago, some 'sounding to be' senior people called me from Chennai (one Mr. Shekar, and then Mr. Selvakumar, etc) assuring to solve the problem I have but none of them seem to follow up the case to close. Every time when I contacted Hitachi Support, the people talk so nicely and always would tell that they will get back within an hour or so but at no point of time they came back in time only for me to call them again to check what they would do.
The story is bitter than what have narrated so I have cut the long story short only to say that any one goes to purchase Hitachi AC is inviting pain at exorbitent price.
Couple of days ago one Mr. Dheenadhayalan came and reported gas leak and observed water dripping with less cooling efficiency. And today one Mr. Prabhakaran came to attend to the problem and told that he has tightened the dummy nuts so there should be no more leak and charged some gas to increase the cooling so there will be no more water dripping also from indoor units. But sooner he left my premises, water began to drip.
So in effect the story and my pain continues with Hitachi and today I am raising a big alarm for Hitachi to take back the unit and refund me the money, or I may have to resort to legal course (consumer court or whatver for all the agony).
I am still being challenged with such a poor (I am unable to find any bad word to put here) service from Hitachi so anyone who reads this be warned.
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